The Top 10 Runway Shows of 2024

The Top 10 Runway Shows of 2024 as chosen by our EIC, Kenneth Richard

Throughout 2024, the world of luxury fashion experienced both caution and creativity as designers faced the challenges of a shifting market landscape. Amid reports of stagnating sales and an increasingly saturated digital environment, fashion houses navigated the delicate balance between maintaining commercial viability and pushing the boundaries of creative expression.

In the Fall 2024 season, many established brands chose safety over spectacle, focusing on solidifying their core collections rather than making bold artistic statements. Nonetheless, we witnessed some creative director debuts and saw several brands successfully wrestle with how to connect their historic identities with contemporary notions of luxury and womanhood.

Spring 2025, on the other hand, emerged as a pivotal moment for luxury fashion. As the industry grappled with economic headwinds, the collections presented were eagerly anticipated as indicators of how brands would tackle the dual demands of innovation and marketability. The response was a refreshing surge of creativity; designers appeared to step away from the pressures of fast-paced digital trends, adopting a bolder, more liberated approach to luxury fashion. Overall, the best runway shows of 2024 demonstrated that, even in uncertain times, fashion remains a dynamic field of artistic expression and a complex indicator of cultural evolution.

Jun Takahashi’s Undercover served up an excellent collection that exploded the boundaries of garment categories, fabric possibilities, and what can be worn when and where, showing us that originality and wearability can coexist, that the avant-garde can feel effortless, and that the greatest luxury in fashion is to not be confined by luxury.

Alaïa’s first show in New York made one of the best uses of an architectural setting we’ve seen, with Pieter Mulier sending his models spiraling down the curving walkway Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Guggenheim museum. But the collection itself was also an artful feat, with the design team challenging itself not to use any zippers or buttons, maintaining the brand’s signature sculpted sensuality through structural perspectives.

Though it may have aligned with the tenth anniversary of debut at the house, Nicolas Ghesquière’s Fall 2024 collection for Louis Vuitton didn’t show any signs of looking back or slowing down. Instead, the designer carried his mastery of history-meets-futurism in scintillating new directions.

In a year of algorithmically determined sameness and an identity crisis for luxury, Prada delivered the collection we didn’t know we needed to see. The house takes home the coveted top spot with a runway that saw Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada set out to intentionally break the rules of the moment’s digital overload and shatter the algorithm with an ecstatic and beautifully chaotic celebration of utterly individual dressing.

Here are The Impression’s picks for the Top 10 runway shows of 2024 as selected by our Editor in Chief, Kenneth Richard.